Crawley Town are facing a mass exodus of players this summer as the financial cutbacks at the club begin to bite.

Reds will announce which of their 12 out-of-contract players will be offered new deals this morning with chief executive Michael Dunford hinting there will be “wholesale changes”. Sergio Torres has already confirmed he will not be staying at the Checkatrade.com Stadium and The Argus understands that Mark Connolly, Paul Jones, Gary Dicker, Paul Connolly, Rory Fallon and Jonny Maddison have also been released.

Mike Jones, Billy Clarke and Jamie Proctor are understood to have turned down new deals on reduced wages while Dannie Bulman and Mat Sadler are still weighing up their options. Boss John Gregory says he had to be “ruthless” when it came to negotiations due to financial restrictions and admits finding replacements will be difficult.

Gregory said: “We’ve made some offers to some of our players and they will probably turn it down and try to get more money elsewhere. I had to be ruthless, possibly more so than I wanted to be but most of them I can’t offer the same money that they were on this year.

“It is extremely difficult and never gets any easier. It’s horrible saying ‘sorry mate you’ve run through a brick wall for me but I’m not going to give you a contract’. I’ve stuck my neck out a little bit on the ones I wanted to keep because with the financial budget I have it means I have to be very careful how I spend it.”

Gregory has also revealed he is keen to bring Albion winger Jeffrey Monakana back to Reds next season despite criticising the player’s fitness levels during his loan spell with Reds. He added: “I would like Jeffrey to come back. If we could get him fully fit with a good pre-season under his belt and focused on his job then you’ve got a match-winner there.”